Skip to main content

A Saturday in Early January. . .

My cheerful painterly picture placeholder (borrowed from somewhere on the web) until I have another Kodak moment to share.
 

Finishing those 16 Saxon cuirassiers this weekend come hell, or high water!  And after only almost a year.  I know, I know.

Spent a very pleasant hour or so early yesterday evening looking over each figure and horse, several of which required no attention while a few others did.  Mostly tiny touch-ups to sword blades and/or scabbards along with some very fine lining using a dark Army Painter wash to define the shoulder wings of the trumpeter and kettle drummer.  

In a few instances, the painterly errors were so tiny that I decided to ignore them.  After all we must cling to the few threads of rational thought left to us, right?  Mulled wine and Yatzi by the hearth with the Grand Duchess followed later.

Today (Saturday), just a couple of small touch-ups left and then the flag. Might even get 'em glossed by Sunday afternoon. And then onto 15 Croats for a change of pace before returning to cavalry. You guessed it, the second batch of 14 Saxon cuirassiers (but representing a different regiment). 36+ Minden Austrian hussars after that although I will probably break up that project with a coach, hay wagon, and more civilians between squadrons.  You know.  Just to keep things from becoming too much of a slog.  

Yes, I am a pathetic glutton for painting punishment!  But it looks like a painting plan for 2025 has taken firmer shape nonetheless.  Ambitious?  Yes.  But as Phil Olley wrote in a couple of early Battlegames articles, and I might be misquoting slightly, "Man with no target hit nothing."

Happy Weekend everyone!

Stokes

 

2025 Painting Targets

Regiment

1st Company/Squadron

2nd Company/Squadron

3rd Company/Squadron

Completed Regiment

Eureka Saxon Cuirassiers (30)

 

In-progress

 

 

 

Croats (15)

 

 

Next in Queue

 

 

 

Karlstaedt Grenz Hussars (36+)

 

 

 

 

 

1st and 2nd Anspach-Beyreuth, Waldeck, Anhalt-Zerbst Composite Regiment (60+)

 

 

 

 

 

Coach

 

 

 

 

 

Hay Wagon

 

 

 

 

 

20 or so Civilians

 

 

 

 

 


Comments

Rob said…
Don't be downcast, if you weren't painting it was because you were doing something more important and/or more enjoyable. And, after all that you still have some (a lot?) of soldiers to paint - look at it as a pleasure extended.
Happy New year!
Donnie McGibbon said…
Nice set of targets for 2025, will look forward to seeing your progress with them, your Saxons look great, the Eureka figures are very nice.
pancerni said…
The unit is done. Now you must have them attack something. That's how they can get you motivated to reinforce them.

Popular posts from this blog

And We're Off!!!

  Arrrgh!  Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus.  Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown.  More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart.   I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands.  In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands.   As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff.  Depending on ...

Sunday Morning Coffee with AI. . .

    A rmed with a second cup of fresh, strong coffee, I messed around a bit this morning with artlist.io using its image to image function in an attempt to convert my hand-drawn map from September 2006 to something that more resembles an old map from the mid-18th century.  And just like my experiments with Ninja AI in June, the results are mixed.   The above map is pretty good, but Artlist keeps fouling up the place names and has trouble putting a faint overlay of hexes across the entire area.  Hexes, admittedly, are not likely to be found on any genuine maps from the era in question, but there we are.  Frankly, I prefer the appearance of the Ninja map, but there were problems getting it to correct its errors.  Grrrr.  As is the case with so much having to do with the various AI's out there now, the output generated is a direct result of the prompts entered.  For text alone, and when you develop a lengthy, highly detailed prompt, it is...

Warboss Green Bases. . .

    I t's amazing how something as simple as applying two coats of Citadel 'Warboss Green' (ex-Games Workshop 'Goblin Green') can enliven a unit of figures and get 'em that much closer to glossing and completion.  In much the same way that applying fleshtone early in painting process helps bring the figures to life.  Just some limited dry-brushing to bring out the manes, tails, and some equine musculature, and I'm calling my version of Saxony's von Polenz Cuirassiers, circa 1733, done and dusted.  Longtime visitors to the Grand Duchy of Stollen might recall (the blog will turn 19 years old in September) that I generally go for an old school approach when it comes to unit bases and paint them a nice, bright green.  Exceptions include command vignettes, skirmishers of one kind or another, transport, camp followers, and various other civilian one-offs.  The approach is not to everyone's taste, but I like the cheery toy soldier appearance once everything...